Rituals for Healing
by DisguisedasInnocent
Summary: Santana knows that she's seen Quinn broken before, utterly and completely, but at the same time she knows that this time is worse time it's more complete than it's ever been before and she doesn't know whether she can put Quinn back together again. That doesn't change that she's going to try though. Quinntana. Post On My Way


_Author's Note: I'm doing two very strange things today. The first is actually writing, the second is writing from second person. I'm not sure exactly if I like how it turned out but I enjoyed the process nonetheless and the writing itself was lovely. Please, read and review. Constructive criticism is more than welcome._

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You've seen her broken before. You never told anyone about those nights though. The nights that you woke up in the early hours to the sound of your bedroom window scraping open, her pain filled gasps piercing your heart as she tugged her own body through the gap. Your hands would guide her through, holding onto the scraps of fabric that she wore to pull her inwards supporting her weight because you knew her body wouldn't support itself. You've never told anyone about those nights, because those nights belonged solely to you and her, those nights were yours.

Your hands would guide her into your arms and you would hold her as tightly but as gently as you could because you knew she hurt and your heart couldn't take the thought of causing her any more pain. You would brush her long blonde hair away from her face, curling it around her ears as your hands moved to cradle her cheeks and you would smile at her. You knew that your eyes showed your concern in the way that her lips would twitch upwards in the moments before she bent and buried her face in your throat. Those moments belonged to you alone. They were endless. Stretching across multiple seconds, spanning the length of minutes as you soothed her pains with your murmured words and gentle touches.

Some nights she could barely move. Her body would protest on the climb to your bedroom window and you wished that she would text you so that you could open your front door instead of your window. Those nights you moved her to the bed before taking her into your arms because you knew that her legs were shaking and her body about to crumble in on itself.

Those nights were the ones that you treasured the most because they meant that she was willing to let you see her when she was broken, utterly and completely. Those nights your hands would caress her back, soothing the wounds that lay underneath her clothes, stroking away the pain as best you could. Then you would slowly slip her clothes off her body, throwing them into a pile onto the floor beside your bed to be dealt with later and your chocolate eyes would scan her frame, your jaw clenching at the sight of the criss-cross scars that covered her back and the new welts that lay across her skin. You would bend your head, your hands pressed into the mattress on either side of her body, and you would kiss every single one of the scars and the new wounds praying that this would be the last time that you would have to kiss the new ones. You knew it wouldn't be, but you prayed to a god that you didn't believe in because you had to have something to hold onto. You couldn't believe that an all loving and all-powerful god would allow someone like Quinn Fabray to be hurt as badly as she was every night because if he did he couldn't be as great as he was presumed to be.

At the end of your ritual, you would push yourself off your hands and move to the bathroom beside your bedroom to get the first aid kit you kept under the counter and the washcloth from the sink. You would look in the mirror, taking in the sight of your broken brown eyes, your rich dark hair, which Quinn described as a mess of black and brown strands, and you would try to tell yourself that it would be all right. Then you would take a deep breath and return to the broken girl on your bed, your hands would be gentle as you worked to put her back together again. You didn't want to, but you would time and time again, because you knew that it was important.

You might have seen her broken before, but this broken is new, this broken is something that you might not be able to repair.

There is a tube down her throat. You know that it goes all the way down into her lungs, helping the blonde haired girl to breathe steadily. The tube is taped into place, cold white tape extending around the strong jaw that you used to caress with your fingers holding it steady as you poured out your heart through your eyes to refill her heart. Those beautiful sparkling hazel eyes are closed, but you can't see her eyes flickering underneath the surface of her lids. For a moment, a painful hand grasps your heart and squeezes your heart so hard that you can't even think. She looks dead.

Your dark brown eyes take in her body, starting with her feet because there you don't have to see her bare skin revealing all her scars and the new wounds. Even underneath the blankets, you can see the signs of the wounds, the damage to the girl's perfect body, in the shape of the hardened plaster encasing her right ankle, extending upwards to her knee. You can see the wrapping around the girl's left thigh, the plaster that curls around her leg, holding her femur together before running down to strap her tibia and fibula into one piece instead of hundreds.

"You're so broken," You murmur softly as you step into the room, trying to remember the correct way to breathe as you take in the catalogue of pain. Your caring brown orbs take in the sight of the tubes extending out of the top of the simple gown that they've covered her body in. You know that it pierces her skin and slides into her lung, helping the cavity to drain of fluid but you can't process the thought that her lung had collapsed. Thousands of wires tangle around her body, linking her into the network of machines whose sole purpose is to keep her body functioning. Above the noise of the monitors, the nurses and the doctors outside, and the wailing of her mother in the corridor you can hear the thumping beat of her heart and it's the most reassuring sound you've ever heard.

"How is she Santana?" Her mother asks you and for a moment you can't breathe to reply because Quinn is so utterly broken and you think it's broken you to see her like that.

"Broken," You reply because there is nothing else to say. It's the truth.

The blonde haired woman nodded slowly, her hair slipping forward to tickle her cheeks for a moment and you are struck by the fact that this woman looks so much like your Quinn. You can see Quinn in her mother's features, staring back at you as if she were awake. "You've always been able to put her back together before," She murmured, bowing her head so that she didn't have to look into your eyes as she spoke. You know it pained her, the truth of her daughter's past, because it proved that for years she was the worst kind of mother in the world. "Please, help her again."

"Always," You vow because there is nothing else to say and you know that you would endlessly help Quinn to piece together the shards of her life. You've been there before, in the times when she didn't know up from down and you've worked together to sort out her being and make it complete. Sometimes she loses the pieces and sometimes you find them. "She's going to need you."

"I know." Judy whispered her voice trembling slightly but you place a hand on her shoulder, offering her the simple comfort of your touch. Not many people would believe it if they saw you, but you knew your way around the Fabray women, and you knew the ways in which you could help them. "I won't abandon her again. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that." You whisper softly. "Can I have some time with her alone?"

"Always," Judy returns your sentiment. That moment is the moment that she knows she approves of you. You know that her disapproval wouldn't have stopped Quinn in the end but it would have hurt her and you can't bear to see her hurt.

Stepping up to the bed you sit on the edge, careful to avoid pressing against Quinn's body in any way that could hurt her as you look at the girl's face. Your eyes trace the long wound across her forehead, the one that curls upwards along the contour of her skull and back into her hairline. The one held together by a mess of staples and stitches. You knew those same staples and stitches held together multiple other parts of the beautiful girl's body and you are once again thankful for the ways in which medicine has improved over the years.

"When you first told me about your father I wanted to kill him." You murmur softly, pressing your forehead against the soft pillow beside Quinn's head, drawing in the faint hint of her scent from her hair. "I tried to think what it would be like for my father to beat me, but I couldn't, because I know that he would never do that. I tried to think what you thought, and then I was struck by the thought that at one point in time you thought that your father would never hurt you either."

You lift your head slightly, moving forward so that your face hovers above Quinn, your eyes lock onto the wound above her eye your heart wrenching inside your chest. "I've always been putting you back together Quinn, and I'll never stop, I don't care what I have to do." You lean down just slightly to place your lips against Quinn's skin, moving to kiss the length of the cut before preparing to do the same with each one that spans Quinn's body, lifting the covers gently to gain access as you carry out your ritual. Then at the end, when each of Quinn's wounds have been kissed and bathed with love you curl your body around her protectively, your fingers running through her short hair gently as you soothe her because you know that even in her sleep she lives in a nightmare.


End file.
